Tomorrow this space gets taken over by a two-part year-end review for all the cringe-worthy awfulness that was 2021, so this post will have to make do for our annual New Year’s Eve return to the house on Sunset. While the battle of the Broadway Norma Desmonds has traditionally been between Glenn Close, Betty Buckley and Patti LuPone, the talented performer who stormed Germany for an impressive theatrical run should be a worthy contender in that showdown. Helen Schneider has the vocal power and theatrical nuances to be both tender and dominating, as evidenced by this ever-building version of my favorite song from all of ‘Sunset Boulevard’ ~ ‘The Perfect Year’.
The beauty of all these Norma Desmonds is that there are all these Norma Desmonds, and the world, once upon a time, was big enough and grand enough and magnanimous enough to allow for such wondrously varied and diverse takes on the iconic diva. A lesson lost to time, perhaps, but I’m always reminded of it when we revisit talent like Ms. Schneider’s, and all the other luminous ladies who have taken on the role.
This version of ‘The Perfect Year’ begins with some of the hopeful tenderness that makes the original musical scene so memorable for me, yet it grows into something more, dropping the duet with a man and letting Norma keep center stage all to herself. You see, it was never about him – it was never about them – it was about her. Her own demons, her own doubts, and her own dreams.
There is magic there. There is madness there. And there is majesty.
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